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BACCALAUREATE    SERMON 


June   11,    1893 


Columbia 
in  ike  City  of 


PROGRESS    IN    KNOWLEDGE 
THROUGH    LOVE 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON 


OF    1893 


BY 


ALFRED  BARRY,   D.D.,  D.C.L 

CANON   OF  WINDSOR,    LATE   PRIMATE   OF 
AUSTRALIA  AND  TASMANIA 


SUNDAY,  JUNE  n,   1893 


Eph.  III.,  18,  19 :  That  ye,  being  rooted  and 
grounded  in  love,  may  be  strong  to  apprehend,  with  all 
saints,  what  is  the  breadth  and  length,  and  depth  and 
Tieight,  and  to  know  the  love  of  Christ,  which  passeth 
knowledge,  that  ye  may  be  filed  unto  all  the  fulness  of 
God. 

All  anniversary  celebrations  must  be  pregnant  with 
suggestive  contrast,  between  that  which  endures  and 
that  which  passes  away — between  the  short  life  of 
each  generation  and  the  long  continuity  of  deep-rooted 
institutions — between  forms  and  circumstances  which 
change,  and  principles  which  are  immutable — between 
the  necessity  of  actual  growth,  which  is  laid  upon  all 
that  is  finite,  and  the  steadfastness  of  the  ideal  which, 
if  it  be  true  at  all,  is  an  attribute  of  the  Infinite  and 
the  Eternal.  But  I  think  that  this  general  character- 
istic comes  out  with  some  special  force — certainly  to  a 
speaker,  perhaps  also  to  his  hearers — on  such  occasions 
as  this ;  when  one  whose  life  is  mainly  in  the  past, 
illuminated  not  by  the  magic  brightness  of  hope,  but 
by  the  more  prosaic  light  of  experience,  has  to  address 
mainly  young  men,  who  are  still  in  all  the  freshness  of 
their  early  manhood,  looking  onward  to  the  unknown 
capacity  and  expansiveness  of  the  future ;  when  (as  to- 
day) he  speaks,  under  the  auspices  of  a  University  essen- 


4  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

tially  like,  yet  in  all  associations  and  circumstances 
utterly  unlike,  the  ancient  Universities,  with  which  he 
is  familiar,  in  the  familiarity  both  of  knowledge  and 
of  love ;  and,  above  all,  when  he  speaks  in  the  House 
of  God,  where  necessarily  all  the  changes  and  chances 
of  this  mortal  life  are  seen  from  the  vantage-ground  of 
Divine  and  therefore  imperishable  truth,  revealed  to 
us,  as  otherwise  in  divers  measures  and  divers  man- 
ners of  imperfection,  so  unique  and  perfect  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

Out  of  the  sense  of  such  contrast  we  are  taught 
by  the  maturest  philosophy  that  much  of  our  best 
and  deepest  knowledge  comes.  So  it  is  with  us 
to-day.  The  consciousness  of  progress — a  rapid  and 
auspicious  progress,  if  I  mistake  not — is  necessarily 
your  watchword.  But  progress,  in  the  true  sense  of 
the  word — distinct  from  mere  vicissitude  and  change,  as 
the  stream  of  a  great  river  from  the  continual  ebb  and 
flow  of  the  waves  upon  the  seashore — depends  on  the 
realization  in  right  harmony  of  both  these  contrasted 
conditions.  It  must  have  its  capacity  of  change,  ex- 
pansion, growth ;  but  it  must  also  have  a  continuity  of 
idea  and  principle  and  life,  running  like  a  golden 
thread  through  the  whole  texture  of  what  is  woven  by 
the  hand  of  Time.  The  hope  of  progress  is  almost 
equally  incompatible  with  belief  in  changeful,  isolated 
Individualism,  and  belief  in  an  iron  unchangeableness 
of  Law.  It  finds — it  always  has  found — its  best  in- 
spiration in  that  Christian  belief,  which  at  once  real- 
izes man  and  God,  and  realizes  both  as  One — resting 
on  the  great  mystery  of  nrysteries,  which  Trinity 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  5 

Sunday  has  but  now  pressed  upon  our  thought — know- 
ing the  eternal  and  unchangeable  Jehovah  as  our 
Father  indeed,  who  lives  in  His  children  by  the  In- 
dwelling Presence  of  His  dear  Son,  who  quickens  and 
moves,  without  overwhelming,  their  free  spirituality 
by  the  breath  of  the  Divine  Spirit. 

Let  me  speak  to  you  to-day  of  this  conception  of 
.true  progress,  under  the  guidance  of  the  text,  closing 
St.  Paul's  sublime  prayer  for  his  converts  in  Asia, 
which,  as  in  all  the  deeper  utterances  of  this  Epistle  to 
the  Ephesians,  unites  with  fervour  and  passion  of 
enthusiasm  the  most  philosophical  coherence  and  com- 
prehensiveness of  thought. 

I. — In  it  we  have  his  ideal  of  growth  in  knowledge, 
"  strengthening  men  to  apprehend  "  at  once  lt  all  the 
length  and  breadth,"  and  "  all  the  depth  and  height " 
of  truth.  ' "  To  apprehend,"  as  our  Revised  Version 
rightly  corrects  the  older  translation,  not  "  to  compre- 
hend "  —to  grasp,  that  is,  the  real  though  partial  know- 
ledge, with  which  in  respect  both  of  Nature  and  Hu- 
manity we  are  wisely  content,  without  waiting  for  the 
complete  demonstrative  knowledge,  of  which  necessa- 
rily a  finite  mind  is  incapable  in  contemplation  of  the 
infinite,  and  which  accordingly  in  us  is  possible  only  in 
relation  to  the  creations  of  our  own  minds,  impossible 
in  relation  to  the  creations  of  a  higher  Hand. 

Through  such  apprehension  there  is,  first  a  growth  in 
"  the  length  and  breadth,"  the  visible  and  obvious  ex- 
pansion of  our  knowledge.  This  expansion  is  not  only 
continuous  and  irresistible,  but  it  has  its  increase  (so 
to  speak)  of  acceleration,  as  the  ages  roll  on,  Mar- 


6  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

vellous  is  the  degree  of  that  acceleration,  which  is 
characteristic  of  our  own  time.  New  fields  of  observa- 
tion and  study  are  being  opened  day  by  day — largely 
by  the  growth  of  our  mechanical  and  physical  science — 
in  all  regions  of  the  earth,  in  all  depths  of  the  sea,  in 
all  the  strata  of  the  air  around  us,  in  all  the  vastness 
of  our  planetary  system,  and  the  yet  more  illimitable 
vastness,  which  spreads  beyond.  Larger  inductions 
of  Law  are  continually  extending  themselves,  not 
merely  in  space  but  in  time ;  for  everywhere  the  his- 
torical method  of  study  is  triumphant,  declaring  true 
knowledge  of  the  present  to  be  impossible  without  the 
larger  knowledge  of  an  all  but  immeasurable  past. 
And  from  these  expansions  there  naturally  follows,  as 
the  curriculum  of  your  own  University  most  plainly 
shows,  a  continual  enlargement,  not  only  in  variety  but  in 
specialization  of  study,  almost  bewildering  to  those  who 
lived  their  academic  life  in  older  and  simpler  days,  and  a 
continual  development  of  inventions,  utilizing  that  va- 
riety of  knowledge  for  the  service  of  humanity.  This 
expansion — scientific,  literary,  aesthetic — is  to  the  mass 
of  men  the  most  certain,  the  most  intelligible,  the  most 
immediately  valuable.  Our  age  glories  in  it,  demands 
it  for  its  own  needs,  rewards  it  with  its  prizes  of 
wealth  and  fame.  Even  our  faith  accepts  it  as  a 
gift  of  God,  a  broken  light  from  the  Infinite  Knowledge 
to  which  all  things  are  present ;  our  universities  are 
therefore  called  upon  to  welcome  it,  in  their  twofold 
character,  as  homes  not  only  of  education,  but  of  re- 
search :  and  they  obey  that  call  freely  everywhere,  not 
least  freely,  if  I  mistake  not,  in  this  new  and  growing 
country. 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  J 

But  there  is  another  expansion  "  in  depth  and 
height,"  which  St.  Paul  seems  to  place  in  climax  even 
above  this  more  visible  and  obvious  expansion. 

It  is  an  extension  in  depth,  insisting  on  going  down 
below  this  wide  variety  of  visible  phenomena  to  the 
few  great  truths  and  energies  which  underlie  them  ;  in 
going  back  thro'  the  ages  of  the  past,  to  the  origin  from 
which  all  this  Kosmos  sprang  ;  in  correlating  all 
various  forms  of  thought  and  knowledge  with  one 
another,  not  only  in  one  great  harmony  but  in  one  great 
development.  Everywhere  the  secondary  strata  of 
thought  are  being  examined,  not  merely  for  what  they 
themselves  can  reveal,  but  in  order  to  pass  through 
them  to  the  primal  rock  below.  So  in  purely  physical 
science  men  seek  to  penetrate  to  the  secret  of  Matter 
and  of  Force,  if  indeed  they  be  distinct  from  one 
another ;  in  Physiological  Science,  to  the  secret  of 
Life ;  in  the  study  of  man,  to  the  secret  of  free  spirit- 
ual Personality  ;  and  altho',  as  yet,  they  have  to  regard 
these  as  distinct,  yet  to  find  out,  if  it  may  be,  their  rela- 
tions to  one  another,  and  to  the  One  Cause  from  which 
they  must  ultimately  proceed.  In  fact,  they  have  to 
acknowledge  in  some  sense  the  old  saying  Omnia 
abeunt  in  mysterinm,  even  when  they  will  not  give  to 
the  word  mystery  the  meaning  which  the  New  Testa- 
ment places  upon  it — as  a  secret  (that  is)  of  the  Divine 
Nature,  to  reason,  it  is  true,  indiscoverable,  but  to 
faith  a  secret  no  longer,  because  revealed  in  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ. 

It  is  an  extension,  on  the  other  hand,  in  height ;  not 
content  to  know  all  truths,  as  (so  to  speak)  on  one 
level  both  of  dignity  and  of  importance,  but — just  be- 


8  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

cause  it  recognizes  in  the  human  nature,  which  con- 
templates truth,  the  subordination  of  body  and  soul  to 
spirit — rising  in  a  corresponding  gradation  from  truths 
material  and  psychical  to  truths  spiritual.  In  each  de- 
partment of  knowledge  it  seeks  the  supreme  idea,  up 
to  which  all  observation  and  discovery  lead.  In  the 
relation  of  these  various  departments  to  one  another  it 
acknowledges  distinction  between  the  highest,  which 
is  an  end  in  itself,  and  the  lower,  which  should  simply 
subserve  it.  And  perhaps  it  feels  these  distinctions 
most  profoundly  and  most  keenly,  when  it  tries  to 
make  these  conceptions  its  grounds  of  action,  and  so 
passes  from  the  purely  intellectual  into  the  moral 
sphere.  In  fact,  like  the  Wise  Man  of  old,  it  bids  us 
distinguish  from  mere  knowledge  and  understanding 
the  true  Wisdom,  which  is  the  grasp  of  the  end  and 
purpose  of  man's  own  being.  Perhaps  it  goes  on 
like  him,  to  see  that  the  attainment  of  it  in  each  mind 
is  impossible,  unless  it  has  some  glimpse  of  the  end 
and  purpose  of  all  creation  ;  which  to  one  who  believes 
in  God  must  be  a  glimpse,  whether  through  reason  or 
through  faith,  of  the  Supreme  Wisdom  of  the  Creative 
Mind. 

In  some  sense  it  is  clear  that  this  latter  extension  is 
in  its  method  and  object  the  opposite  of  the  former ; 
its  eyes  are  set  towards  a  brightening  future,  and  not 
towards  the  dimness  of  a  distant  past.  As  it  traces 
in  the  universe  itself  a  constant  evolution  of  higher 
out  of  lower  forms  of  being,  so  it  looks  on  to  a  cor- 
responding evolution  of  higher  knowledge  in  the  here- 
after. But  yet  in  either  case  the  progress  leads  the 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  9 

mind  from  the  finite  and  actual  towards  the  Infinite 
and  the  Eternal.  There  is  a  true  significance,  although 
clothed  as  usual  in  a  crude  material  form,  in  the  old 
Indian  legend,  which  tells  how  the  two  lesser  gods 
equally  realized  the  infinitude  of  the  Supreme  Deity, 
when  the  one  dived  unceasingly  below,  while  the  other 
soared  unceasingly  above. 

.  Now  in  either  aspect  this  extension  of  knowledge  is 
to  the  world  far  less  obvious  and  certain  than  the 
visible  and  tangible  growth  in  length  and  breadth. 
It  is  apt  to  seem  transcendental,  mystical,  unreal;  it 
has  no  results  of  manifest  usefulness  to  be  applauded 
and  rewarded ;  in  the  strong  sense  of  practical  needs 
and  difficulties  the  world  looks  with  some  impatience 
on  devotion  to  its  service  of  the  highest  and  keenest 
intelligences.  But  I  venture  strongly  to  contend 
that,  just  for  this  very  reason,  it  should  hold  some 
primacy  of  honour  within  the  quiet  and  thoughtful 
precincts  of  a  University,  in  view  of  that  double 
function  of  which  I  have  spoken:  as  a  place,  which 
has  leisure  for  research  into  the  realities  lying  below 
or  above  the  busy  world  of  immediate  usefulness ;  as  a 
place  of  education  of  the  mind  in  its  nobler  capacities 
to  a  recognition  of  something  higher  and  deeper  than 
the  occupations  and  interests,  which  will  only  too 
certainly  absorb  the  larger  portion  of  actual  life 
hereafter. 

It  has  been  said  regretfully  that  in  the  wide  exten- 
sion of  secondary  knowledge,  which  is  new,  the  world 
has  lost  the  spirit  of  those  older  days,  when  the 
standing-ground  of  men's  idea  was  far  narrower  than 


10  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

now,  but  when  in  height  it  reached  to  heaven  above, 
and  in  depth  to  hell  beneath.  But,  if  it  be  so  in  the 
world,  it  should  not  be  so  here.  It  is  the  very  function 
of  a  University  to  teach  a  nobler  wisdom — to  insist 
that  the  gain  of  the  new  need  not  be,  and  shall  not  be, 
the  loss  of  the  old — to  see  that  the  expansion  of 
the  visible  horizon  of  disco veiy  around  us  shall  not  so 
absorb  our  mental  vision,  as  to  make  it  unable  or  un- 
willing to  look  into  the  darkness  of  the  underlying 
depths,  and  to  the  brightness  of  the  heights  above. 
It  was  in  the  consciousness  of  this  function  that,  by 
that  good  old  tradition  which  you,  my  brethren,  have 
inherited  in  your  own  College,  and  have  faithfully  pre- 
served, the  inner  life  of  every  University  was  so 
strongly  pervaded  with  the  religious  idea,  which — 
whatever  else  it  does — must  educate  the  highest  spirit- 
ual faculty,  and  must  bring  the  soul  face  to  face  with 
ultimate  realities,  both  with  the  foundation  on  which 
all  rests,  and  with  the  perfection  up  to  which  all  rises. 
Ill  will  it  be,  if  in  zeal  for  what  calls  itself  "  positive 
knowledge,"  the  significance  and  the  effectiveness  of 
that  ancient  connection  should  be  lost. 

II. — Such  is  the  Apostle's  ideal  of  a  full  and  harmo- 
nious growth  of  knowledge — an  ideal,  which  must 
approve  itself  to  the  soundest  philosophy,  as  truly  as 
to  the  deepest  religious  faith.  But  what  is  essentially 
and  vitally  religious  in  his  view  of  it  is  his  conception 
of  the  subjective  qualification  of  the  soul  for  the  dis- 
covery of  truth,  and  of  the  central  objective  reality, 
which  binds  all  truths  together.  He  finds  both  in 
Love.  It  is  by  "  being  rooted  and  grounded  in  love  " 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  II 

that  the  soul  is  to  be  made  strong  for  apprehension ; 
and  that  which  ultimately  it  has  to  apprehend  is  a 
Divine  "love  which  passeth  knowledge."  In  exactly 
the  same  spirit  he  declares  elsewhere  to  the  Corinthians 
that  while  "knowledge" — the  hard  proud  head-know- 
ledge, which  he  rebukes  in  them — only  "  puffs  up," 
"  love  builds  up  "  in  solid  substantial  growth ;  and  in 
this  Epistle  makes  the  possession  and  use  of  truth  to 
be  possible  only  when  it  is  "  truth  in  love."  * 

There  is  a  profound  and  far-reaching  significance  in 
this  religious  philosophy.  For  love  in  us  is  the 
strong  recognition,  through  mind  and  heart  alike,  of  a 
real  unity,  expressing  itself  in  sympathy,  between  the 
Ego  and  the  non-Ego — between  the  soul  within  and 
the  realities  which  are  contemplated  as  around,  below, 
above  it.  And  to  see  in  Love  the  central  life  of  all 
these  realities  implies  the  conviction  that  this  sym- 
pathy in  us  is  no  mere  imagination  of  our  own,  but  is 
the  reflection  of  a  Divine  sympathy,  of  which  the 
whole  Kosmos  is  but  the  visible  expression.  That 
philosophy  has  on  its  subjective  side  at  least  this  note 
of  truth,  that  in  the  search  after  reality  it  enlists  man's 
nature  as  an  indivisible  whole.  It  unites  in  the 
pursuit  of  true  knowledge  the  intellectual  and  moral 
faculties,  which  on  any  other  theory  are  apt  to  be 
dissociated ;  it  acknowledges  even  in  the  poetic  imagi- 
nation, invariably  personifying  all  on  which  it  gazes,  a 
real  insight  into  the  heart  of  things.  And  on  the 
other  side  it  holds — surely  not  without  reason — that 
the  great  ultimate  and  central  reality — the  To'Qv,  on 

*  See  i  Cor.  viii.,  I ;  Eph.  iv.,  15. 


12  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

which  all  mere  phenomena  depend — must  have  in  a 
similar  unity  attributes  corresponding  to  these  facul- 
ties in  us,  by  all  of  which  we  approach  to  some  know- 
ledge of  its  nature.  The  faith  which  it  involves  is  like 
all  the  other  higher  faculties  of  our  humanity  in  "  the 
realization  of  things  not  seen,"  but  it  has  its  essential 
characteristic  in  this,  that  it  sees  not  merely  the 
To  aoparov,  but  the  Tor  'Aoparov,  "  Him,  who  is  in- 
visible." 

Let  us  look,  first,  at  this  fundamental  principle  on 
its  subjective  side.  Note  how  this  need  of  love  for 
true  insight  is  exemplified  with  an  increasing  force 
and  clearness,  as  we  ascend  fche  scale  of  knowledge. 

We  study  the  world  of  Nature — in  its  vastness  and 
grandeur,  or  in  the  minute  perfection  of  each  smallest 
element,  in  its  marvellous  order  under  law,  in  the  yet 
greater  marvel  of  its  continuous  development,  in  the 
vast  pervasiveness  of  its  evident  design,  in  the  subtle 
and  exquisite  manifestation  of  its  beauty.  To  that 
study  in  all  its  phases  there  rightly  belongs  a  kind  of 
love — rudimentary,  I  grant,  in  itself  and  imperfect — 
in  the  enthusiastic  sense  of  wonder,  delight,  reverence, 
which  tinctures  the  cold  dry  light  of  intellect  with 
fche  glow  of  emotion  and  imagination,  and  inspires  the 
search  into  Nature  with  something  of  poetry,  some- 
thing of  affection,  something  even  of  moral  earnest- 
ness. To  such  enthusiasm,  especially  characteristic  of 
artistic  and  poetic  genius,  there  is  granted,  as  E-uskin 
has  so  nobly  taught  us,  an  intuition  of  the  great  Laws 
of  Nature,  and  the  unity  binding  all  in  one,  to  which 
the  more  prosaic  reason  hardly  attains.  And  we  may 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  13 

note  that  this  enthusiasm  not  only  grows  in  itself,  but 
assumes  more  and  more  the  character  of  real  sympa- 
thy, as  we  pass  from  the  world  of  inanimate  Nature 
to  the  world  of  Life,  and  especially  wThen  we  come  to 
know  those  orders  of  creatures,  which  have,  in  what 
we  roughly  call  instinct,  the  rudiments  at  least  of  our 
own  intellectual  and  social  and  moral  nature,  and 
which  accordingly  stir  in  us  the  feeling  of  humanity, 
and  claim  from  it  the  recognition  of  some  measure  of 
rights  at  our  hands.  Without  something  of  this  love 
it  may  be  questioned  whether  there  can  be  a  real  in- 
sight into  the  inner  secret  of  Nature  as  a  whole,  as 
distinguished  from  its  outward  form  and  partial  devel- 
opments ;  it  can  hardly  be  questioned  that  the  hard, 
dry  study  of  mere  laws  and  forces  fails  to  unfold  and 
educate  our  own  full  humanity.  What  noble,  yet 
what  mournful,  candour  there  is  in  the  confession  of 
one  great  leader  of  Science  in  our  own  day,  that  "  by 
turning  his  mind  into  a  great  machine  for  grinding 
general  laws  out  of  observation  of  facts,"  he  had  lost 
his  old  capacity  for  the  enthusiasm  of  wonder  and  ad- 
miration, and  produced  in  his  nature  a  kind  of  moral 
atrophy,  a  "  colour  blindness  "  to  the  sense  of  grandeur 
and  beauty ! 

But  it  is  when  we  pass  from  the  lower  realms  of  Na- 
ture to  the  higher  realm  of  humanity,  that  the  need  of 
that  which  is  more  properly  called  love  for  full  know- 
ledge is  most  keenly  felt.  None  can  know  his  fellow- 
men  deeply  and  truly,  who  studies  them  as  he  would 
study  lifeless  things,  without  one  touch  of  sympathy. 
The  so-called  knowledge  of  the  world — faithless,  love- 


14  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

less,  cynical — seldom  penetrates  below  the  surface  of 
outward  action;  it  knows  little  indeed  of  the  inner 
forces  and  capacities  and  aspirations  of  the  soul,  which 
outward  action  can  but  faintly  express.  Nay,  among 
these,  in  virtue  of  its  own  nature,  it  can  understand 
only  those  impulses  of  self-regard  and  self-assertion, 
which  mark  the  survival  in  man  of  the  dread  struggle 
for  existence  in  the  animal  world;  of  the  higher 
humanity  of  loving  self-sacrifice  it  is  utterly  uncon- 
scious. Men  are  coming  to  see,  as  in  political  and 
social  life,  how  the  keenest  and  brightest  intellects, 
thus  destitute  of  sympathy,  fail  utterly  in  dealing 
with  men,  falling  into  errors  and  follies  fairly  impossi- 
ble, nay  fairly  incredible,  to  far  duller  men  who  have 
hearts  to  feel.  I  note  that  in  our  days  even  the  hard 
Science  of  Political  Economy  is  beginning  to  temper 
its  old  belief  in  pure  self-interest,  and  to  take  account 
of  the  self-sacrificing  enthusiasm  of  love,  as  at  least 
one  of  the  great  factors  in  organizing  human  society. 
!  a  man  must  love,  if  he  would  pierce  to  the  real 
heart  of  humanity-)-if,  even  in  his  erring  and  sinning 
fellow-men,  he  would  trace  still  the  lingering  impress 
of  the  image  of  the  Divine — if  he  would  have  any  con- 
ception of  that  real  and  vital  unity,  by  which  human- 
kind becomes  an  organic  whole,  and  thrills  with  a 
common  life. 

But  if  this  law  thus  holds  in  the  spheres  of  created 
being,  and  thus  increases  its  cogency  in  proportion  as 
they  rise  higher  in  gradation,  must  we  not  almost 
necessarily  infer  its  supreme  application  to  the  know- 
ledge of  the  Supreme  Creative  Power  ?  In  some  de- 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  1 5 

gree  it  is  this  application,  which  underlies  even  those 
lower  applications  of  which  I  have  spoken.  That  en- 
thusiastic love  of  Nature — is  it  not  really  the  reverent 
love  of  some  Being,  insensibly  and  irresistibly  personi- 
fied, of  whom  Nature  is  the  creation  and  the  expres- 
sion, and  who  in  "  Nature's  voice  "  speaks  to  the  soul  ? 
That  love  of  humankind,  strong  in  spite  of  all  the  fol- 
lies and  sins  of  actual  men,  unwearied  by  life's  failures 
and  the  world's  ingratitude — is  it  not  really  the  love  of 
One,  not  a  personified  abstraction,  but  a  living  Being, 
whose  image  is  in  humanity,  and  whom  through  hu- 
manity we  can  best  know  ?  But  it  is  when  the  soul, 
putting  all  else  aside,  seeks  to  know  something  of  the 
First  Source  of  all  life  and  being,  that  this  Law  comes 
out  in  its  highest  strength  and  perfection.  Then  it  is 
that  the  Apostolic  saying  stands  forth  in  transcendent 
clearness — "  He  that  loveth  not,  knoweth  not  God,"  as 
He  really  is. 

I  am  far  indeed  from  thinking  that  even  a  purely 
intellectual  research  leads  in  no  degree  to  a  God — even 
to  a  personal  and  living  God.  The  freshest  modern 
thought  on  the  evolution,  of  the  order  of  being  tells 
us  plainly  that  behind  it  philosophy  must  acknow- 
ledge "  a  Cause,  of  which  the  one  thing  we  know  is  that 
it  is  Teleological,"  implying  Design  and  Purpose ;  and 
what  is  such  a  Cause  as  this  but  an  Eternal  Mind  ? 
Of  the  revelation  of  beauty  in  creation,  as  distinct  from 
order  and  usefulness,  we  have  been  profoundly 
taught  that,  as  it  needs  personality  in  us  for  its 
apprehension,  so  it  surely  implies  also  a  Supreme 
Personality  for  its  manifestation.  The  very  ex- 


l6  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

istence  in  the  world  of  a  moral  nature  in  its  highest 
creatures,  and  a  great  force  in  history,  "  which  makes 
for  righteousness,"  must  imply  corresponding  attri- 
butes, only  infinite  in  their  greatness,  in  the  Creative 
and  Ruling  Power,  on  which  all  nature  and  history 
rest ;  and  these  attributes  essentially  belong  to  Per- 
sonality. All  these  lines  of  thought,  even  if  they  are 
studied  in  the  coldest,  most  unsympathetic  reasoning, 
converge  (as  it  seems  to  me)  to  one  great  conclusion, 
and  by  the  fact  of  convergence  infinitely  multiply  their 
strength. 

But  I  do  say  that  here,  also,  sympathy — an  infinitely 
humble  and  yet  confident  sympathy — is  the  key  of 
knowledge.  It  is  through  the  sense  of  moral  relation 
to  the  Supreme  Power,  rightly  absorbing  the  almost 
boundless  reserve  in  us  of  love — the  love  of  duty, 
trust,  reverence,  self-sacrifice,  which  earthly  objects, 
even  the  noblest,  cannot  claim  and  cannot  satisfy — it 
is  through  this  that  the  knowledge  of  Grod  assumes  real 
vitality  and  sovereign  force.  It  is  through  this  that  it 
calls  for  our  recognition  with  an  imperious  moral 
claim,  which  cannot  be  put  off  in  a  contented  Agnosti- 
cism, as  though  it  were  an  abstract  theory,  having  no  vital 
connection  with  life.  It  is  through  this  that  it  comes 
home  to  all  minds,  all  ages,  all  characters  of  men,  and, 
wherever  it  thus  comes  home,  assumes  a  dominant,  an 
all  but  exclusive,  power  over  the  soul  and  the  life. 
What  infinite  difference  there  is  between  the  recogni- 
tion, however  clear,  of  a  Supreme  First  Cause,  an  Al- 
mighty Creator  and  Ruler,  even  an  Eternal  Source  of 
all  being,  and  that  moral  consciousness  of  God,  stamped 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  \J 

upon  the  opening  of  Our  Lord's  Prayer,  as  really  Our 
Father  in  Heaven,  whom  we  can  love  because  He  first 
loved  us !  The  one  (to  use  the  old  Patriarch's  com- 
parison) is  the  "  hearing  of  Him  by  the  hearing  of  the 
ear,"  the  other  is  the  "  seeing  Him  face  to  face " ; 
the  one  is  but  the  conclusion  of  reasoning,  the  other  is 
the  victorious  power  which  moves  and  overcomes  the 
world,  and  the  knowledge  of  which,  here  and  here- 
after, is  "  the  life  Eternal." 

III. — Such  is  St.  Paul's  teaching  on  the  subjective 
side — that  the  soul  which  would  have,  in  all  those  ex- 
tensions of  which  we  have  spoken,  the  knowledge  of 
things,  of  man,  of  God,  must  be — for  his  phrase  is  re- 
markable— not  fired  and  animated  by  love  as  a  glori- 
ous sentiment,  but  rooted  and  grounded  in  love  as  the 
strong  fundamental  Law  of  knowledge.  But  the  very 
reason  of  this  truth  lies  in  the  corresponding  doctrine, 
that  the  ultimate  reality  in  the  universe  itself,  the 
ultimate  object,  which  by  contemplation  and  sympathy 
we  have  to  know,  is  a  Divine  "  Love,  which  passeth 
knowledge." 

Note,  my  brethren,  the  full  significance  of  this 
phrase — not  only  a  God,  but  a  God  who  is  Love.  It 
needs  no  argument  to  one  who  knows  what  a  concep- 
tion of  God  is,  that,  if  we  believe  in  Him  at  all,  then 
knowledge  of  whatever  kind  must  be  in  different  de- 
grees a  Revelation  of  Him.  It  is  to  my  mind  not  a 
little  significant  that  everywhere  our  philosophy  traces 
out  what  it  calls  Laws — laws  of  Nature,  under  which 
works  its  infinite  variety  of  forces  ;  laws  of  humanity, 
which  guide  and  control,  though  they  destroy  not,  the 


1 8  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

liberty  of  independent  and  conflicting  wills ;  laws  of 
thought,  affection,  moral  sense,  which  our  own  inner 
individuality  must  freely  or  by  necessity  obey.  Yet 
is  it  not  too  much  forgotten,  that  the  very  use  of  the 
word  "  Laws,"  drawn  as  it  is  from  our  political  and  social 
experience,  properly  implies,  as  existing  behind  their 
regularity,  a  Supreme  Will,  working  with  foreseen  pur- 
pose, working  as  expressing  righteousness?  Against 
much  common  usage  I  venture  even  to  contend,  that 
the  word  cannot  be  employed  without  danger  of  delu- 
sion, except  by  those  who  see  this  Divine  Will  every- 
where manifested  or  implied,  and  to  whom,  therefore, 
as  I  have  said,  all  kinds  of  knowledge  are  but  veiled 
forms  of  the  knowledge  of  God. 

But  what  is  the  central  idea  of  this  Divine  Per- 
sonality ?  If  it  is  simply  the  awfulness  of  Infinite 
Power,  the  transcendence  of  Infinite  Wisdom,  even  the 
austere  and  unbending  majesty  of  Infinite  Righteous- 
ness, then  in  all  these  He  is  immeasurably  removed 
from  us,  high  as  the  heaven  is  high  above  the  earth ; 
and  to  Him,  so  conceived,  though  we  may  bow  in 
wonder,  fear,  submission,  there  can  be  no  possibility  in 
us  of  love.  But  in  the  Gospel  there  is  a  better  and 
more  inspiring  teaching  than  this.  God  is  indeed  All- 
mighty,  All- wise,  All-righteous;  but  His  essential 
Nature  is  that  He  is  Love — Love  from  all  Eternity  in 
the  threefold  unity  of  Godhead — Love  from  the  be- 
ginning of  creation  to  all  the  creatures  that  He  has 
made.  So  to  St.  Paul  to  know  Him  is  to  know  "  the 
Love  that  passeth  knowledge." 

It  needs  a  Gospel  indeed  to  make  this   sure  and 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  19 

certain  to  us — now  that  modern  thought  has  discovered, 
and  (I  am  inclined  to  think)  exaggerated,  the  discor- 
dant notes  of  evil — of  failure  and  waste,  of  suffering 
and  conflict,  of  sin  in  its  degradation  and  malignity 
—jarring  against  that  concert  of  witness  to  the 
Divine  Love,  which  the  poetry,  the  philosophy,  the 
religion  of  the  world  have,  I  believe  rightly,  heard  as 
rising  from  the  realms  both  of  Nature  and  of  Humanity. 
Yet  the  perplexity  is  not  new.  No  one  has  described 
more  terribly  than  St.  Paul  how  all  creation  groans 
under  its  burden — how  the  soul  in  consciousness  of  sin 
cries  out  "  O  wretched  man  that  I  am  ! " — how  those 
who  have  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit  sigh  most  deeply, 
under  their  keener  sense  of  contradiction  and  imper- 
fection from  the  high  ideal  which  He  has  taught 
them.*  But  as  he  knew  the  need  of  a  Gospel,  so  from 
his  heart  of  hearts  he  believed  that  this  need  had 
been  more  than  satisfied.  Therefore  he  speaks  of 
knowing  not  simply  the  Divine  love,  but  the  love  of 
Christ — of  God  (that  is)  in  Christ — as  that  which  can 
be  known,  though  it  passeth  knowledge. 

As  the  first  Christianity  bore  that  joyful  witness  to 
a  weary  and  despondent  world  in  his  days,  so,  my 
brethren,  our  Christianity  has  to  bear  it  now,  when  we 
see,  and  see  without  wonder,  how  gloomy,  despondent, 
dreary,  pessimistic,  is  all  non-Christian  thought. 

There  is  a  cloud  (men  tell  us)  of  blank  ignorance 
between  the  finite  and  the  Infinite,  in  the  cold  gloom 
of  which  all  glow  of  love  and  sympathy  must  die 
out.  Yes !  we  answer,  but  Christ  is  to  us  the  Word 

*  Rom.  vii.,  24  ;  viii.,  22,  23. 


2O  BA  CCA  LA  UREA  TE    SERMON. 

of  God.  "  No  man,  we  know,  hath  seen  God  at  any 
time,"  but  "  the  only  begotten  Son  has  revealed  Him," 
and  opened  to  us  "  the  bosom  of  a  true  Father." 

There  is  the  darker  cloud  yet  of  sorrow,  out  of  which 
there  come  to  us  the  cry  of  suffering,  the  complaint  of 
cruelty  and  injustice,  the  continual  rain  of  tears.  Yes  ! 
we  reply  again,  but  He  has  in  His  own  Person  con- 
secrated suffering,  to  be  the  discipline  of  humanity,  the 
expression  through  sacrifice  of  love,  the  means  of  the 
conquest  of  evil  in  the  soul  and  in  the  world.  Through 
all  these  "  the  light  affliction,  which  is  but  for  a  moment, 
works  for  us  a  far  more  exceeding  weight  of  glory." 

Ay,  but  what  (it  is  rejoined)  can  be  said  of  the 
darkest  cloud  of  sin — what  of  its  horror — what  of  its 
mystery — as  striving  against  God,  as  outraging  His 
righteousness  and  His  love,  as  marring  the  humanity 
made  in  His  Image,  so  that  it  were  better  for  thousands 
had  they  never  been  born  ?  And  we,  if  we  are  honest 
and  wise,  must  acknowledge  frankly  and  solemnly  the 
darkness  of  this  mystery — only  seeing  dimly  that  it 
runs  up  into  the  yet  greater  mystery  of  the  freedom, 
on  which  depends  the  very  possibility  of  moral  good- 
ness. We  must  confess — what  the  study  of  the  history 
of  all  human  thought,  alike  in  philosophy  and  religion, 
plainly  shows  us — that  for  himself  man  can  but  feel 
with  an  ineradicable  consciousness  that  in  some  way 
this  mysterious  power,  being  an  anomaly  monstrous 
and  unnatural,  must  be  taken  away,  and  yet  can  but 
guess  and  speculate  how  these  things  shall  be.  But 
the  faith  in  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  while  it  does  not  yet 
solve  the  mystery  of  the  origin  of  evil,  yet  swallows 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  21 

up  its  darkness  in  the  transcendent  brightness  of  the 
greater  mystery  of  salvation — in  those  twofold  gifts, 
distinct  yet  inseparable,  of  Atonement  in  the  Cross  of 
Calvary,  taking  away  by  Justification  the  guilt  of  sin, 
and  of  regeneration  by  the  indwelling  Presence  of 
Christ  in  the  soul  and  in  the  Church,  breaking  its  bon- 
dage by  Sanctification  and  restoring  to  us  the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God.  It  is  enough  for  us  to 
know  that  "  there  is  no  condemnation,"  and  no  hopeless 
and  grovelling  slavery  under  sin,  "  to  those  who  are  in 
Christ  Jesus,  who  walk  not  after  the  flesh  but  after  the 
spirit." 

And  if,  after  all  these  things,  men  point  us  at  last  to 
the  chill  shadow  of  death — as  to  that  in  which  our  very 
self,  when  it  has  played  its  little  part  in  the  world's 
drama,  dies  out  for  ever — dwell  on  the  intimate  con- 
nection of  our  humanity  with  the  perishable  and  perish- 
ing world  of  Nature — and  ask  How  can  the  creature 
of  a  day  have  any  trace  of  that  likeness  to  the  Eternal, 
which  alone  can  justify  a  confidence  in  the  Divine 
Love  to  us,  and  make  possible  a  returning  love  to  Him  ? 
—then  we  come  at  last  to  that  joyful  word,  clenched 
by  the  Kesurrection  and  Ascension  of  Him  who  spake 
it,  "  I  am  the  Resurrection  and  the  Life ;  and  he  that 
liveth  and  believeth  in  Me  shall  never  die." 

So  every  way  it  is  clear  that  if  we  would  know — 
not  in  mere  flashes  of  speculation  and  hope,  but  in  the 
calm  and  ever  brightening  light  of  certainty — that  the 
one  great  reality  in  all  the  spheres  of  life  is  a  Divine 
Love,  which  passes  knowledge,  we  must  know  it  as 
it  is  manifested  in  Christ.  For  by  that  manifestation 


22  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

through  a  Divine  humanity  we  know  it  as  having  the 
tenderness  of  sympathy;  nay,  as  involving  through 
that  sympathy  the  willing  sacrifice  for  us,  which  in 
our  conception  is  the  crowning  element  in  its  perfec- 
tion. We  know,  as  St.  Paul  elsewhere  teaches,  that 
we  are  followers  of  God,  as  walking  in  love,  when 
we  add,  "  as  Christ  also  loved  us  and  gave  Himself  for 


us."  * 


IV.  Thus,  my  brethren,  to  the  Christian  the  whole 
ideal  of  progress  in  knowledge  grows  out — the  objec- 
tive and  subjective  corresponding,  as  they  always  must 
correspond,  with  each  other.  On  both  its  sides  I  ven- 
ture to  press  it  upon  you,  in  relation  to  the  whole  life 
of  this  University. 

The  University  is  the  highest  School  of  Education. 
The  truth  of  which  I  have  spoken  brings  out,  in  respect 
of  the  education  of  our  humanity,  the  contrast  which 
in  some  sense  notes  the  great  conflict  of  our  time,  be- 
tween a  purely  intellectual  and  a  moral  ideal — between 
(that  is)  that  which  makes  the  development  of  under- 
standing for  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  the  one 
thing  needful  in  education,  and  that  which  gives  the 
supreme  place  to  the  formation  of  character. 

There  is,  I  know,  a  lower  ideal  than  either,  which  is 
predominantly  material,  caring  mainly,  both  in  the 
individual  and  in  society,  for  the  improvement  not  of 
the  true  inner  humanity,  but  of  its  outward  circum- 
stances and  environment.  It  bids  us  estimate  even 
knowledge  absolutely  by  its  material  usefulness ;  it 
makes  the  increase  of  material  wealth,  and  that  which 

*  Eph.  v.,  i.,  2. 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  2$ 

it  can  buy,  the  test  of  progress,  as  in  the  individual  so 
in  the  collective  life ;  it  holds  up  for  each  of  us  what 
is  called  worldly  success,  in  pleasure,  in  fame,  in  power, 
as  the  object  of  all  study  and  exertion  and  hope ;  for  the 
community  it  mistakes  bigness  for  true  greatness ;  nay 
it  professes  to  have  outlived  the  illusions  of  national 
magnanimity  and  duty,  to  refer  all  things  to  the  test 
of  material  usefulness,  and  to  find  the  one  principle  of 
action  in  the  survival  and  victory  of  the  strong.  How 
great — how  fatally  great — is  the  influence  of  that 
basest  of  all  ideals  on  the  world  of  our  century,  I 
need  not  tell  you ;  perhaps  that  influence  is  greatest 
and  deadliest  in  communities  advancing  most  rapidly 
in  material  growth  and  prosperity.  We  must  even 
sadly  acknowledge  its  intrusion  into  higher  spheres. 
The  thick  yellow  river  of  Pactolus  can  pollute  the 
clear  fountain  of  knowledge,  and  even  the  stream  of 
living  water,  which  flows,  like  Siloam,  from  beneath 
the  altar  of  God.  But  within  the  precincts  of  a  Uni- 
versity, surely  that  base  materialism  can  have  no  open 
acknowledgment  of  honour ;  the  very  idea  of  liberal 
education,  as  distinct  from  the  technical  instruction, 
which  the  necessities  of  life  demand,  is  belief  in  it 
for  its  own  sake  and  its  effect  on  our  general  humanity, 
without  thought  of  visible  and  material  usefulness. 
It  is  one  of  the  chief  functions  of  a  University  to  pro- 
test against  this  basest  ideal,  both  by  word  and  life,  in 
the  name  of  true  humanity,  for  the  sake  of  the  happi- 
ness and  nobleness  of  the  ages  to  come.  Here,  there- 
fore, it  seems  to  me,  as  I  have  said,  that  the  overt 
question  lies  between  these  two  higher  ideals  of  which 


24  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

I  have  spoken,  and  the  question  is  surely  one  of  im- 
portance simply  infinite. 

Both,  I  freely  grant,  have  a  certain  height  and 
nobleness.  Far  be  it  from  me  to  depreciate  for  a 
moment  the  education  of  the  intellect  by  knowledge 
in  the  right  harmony  of  its  faculties — the  extension 
of  the  grasp  through  understanding  of  the  laws  of 
things  and  men — the  insight  of  higher  reason  into  the 
principles  which  give  life  and  inspiration  to  law — the 
intuition  through  the  imagination  of  beauty,  grandeur, 
sublimity.  It  is  simply  an  obedience  to  a  law,  in- 
dicated by  the  capacities  and  opportunities  of  our 
nature ;  it  is  one  part  of  that  imitation  of  God  which 
is  the  object  of  our  being.  But  still  we  ask,  "  Is  it  the 
supreme  law?  Is  it  the  imitation  of  the  supreme 
attribute  of  God  ? 

And  the  answer  which  the  Gospel  gives  to  that 
question  is  an  unhesitating  answer.  As  God  is  in  His 
central  essential  Nature  not  Wisdom,  but  Love,  so  the 
supreme  end,  to  which  human  life  must  move,  is  to  love 
rather  than  to  know.  Therefore  to  educate  rightly  is 
not  primarily  to  develop  the  intellect,  that  it  may 
grow  up  by  itself — lonely,  loveless,  it  may  be  merciless — 
using  things,  and  creatures,  and  men,  unsparingly  for 
the  advance  of  knowledge,  but  to  form  character,  to 
train  the  will  to  do  its  appointed  part  in  life,  to 
strengthen  the  sense  of  righteo'usness,  to  kindle  the 
spirit  of  love,  to  show  men  how  to  realize  self  in  order 
to  sacrifice  self,  and  to  assert  liberty  with  a  view  to  the 
"  service  which  is  perfect  freedom."  That  this  is  the 
ideal  of  our  ancient  Universities  we  know ;  it  is  wit- 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  2$ 

nessed  to  by  the  importance  they  assign,  not  merely  to 
teaching  and  study,  but  to  the  influence  of  their  com- 
mon life  under  a  right  harmony  of  freedom  and 
authority,  to  the  cultivation  of  moral  relations  of  duty, 
loyalty,  affection,  to  the  ruling  and  exalting  force  in  them 
of  the  religious  sanction  of  that  common  life,  by  the 
power  of  faith  and  the  inspiration  of  worship.  In  your 
University  here,  my  brethren,  under  perhaps  different 
forms  and  conditions,  I  trust  that  the  same  noble  ideal 
is  as  truly  acknowledged  and  reverenced  as  in  days 
gone  by.  God  forbid  that  it  should  ever  be  dethroned 
from  its  rightful  place  as  a  supreme  inspiration  and  a 
supreme  guide !  And  you,  my  younger  hearers,  when 
your  time  of  study  is  over,  and  you  go  out  into  the 
world  to  repay  there  to  humanity  what  humanity  has 
here  given  you,  remember  that  your  supreme  gift,  your 
supreme  qualification,  even  before  the  bright,  keen 
insight  of  intellect,  will  be  strength,  purity,  nobleness, 
tenderness  of  character.  It  is  this,  which  makes  the 
true  man ;  it  is  this  which  makes  the  true  servant  of 
humanity  and  of  God. 

But  the  University  is  also  a  place  of  study  and 
research  into  truth.  To  it  under  this  aspect  the  cor- 
responding question  presents  itself,  What  is  the  great 
ultimate  reality  which  it  is  true  wisdom  to  know  ? 
And  the  answer  brings  out  here  also  an  ultimate  and 
infinite  contrast — the  contrast  between  a  strong,  vital 
religion  and  a  despondent  or  contented  Agnosticism  as 
to  absolute  Being. 

That  there  must  be  some  great  ultimate  reality 
we  may  take  for  granted.  It  is  true  that  the  growing 


26  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

sense  of  the  vastness  and  complexity  of  knowledge, 
demanding  necessarily  an  increased  division  of  intel- 
lectual labour,  tends  to  over-specialization,  with  the 
danger  of  absorption  in  a  single  branch  of  study  as  the 
one  thing  needful.  But,  as  in  protest  against  this,  men 
seem  to  me  to  be  feeling  more  and  more  deeply  the  need 
of  some  wider  philosophy,  which  may  correlate  these 
special  discoveries  in  one  great  harmony  and  develop- 
ment. There  is,  again,  a  system  of  thought,  which  bids 
us  be  content  with  positive  knowledge  of  the  secondary 
things  wholly  within  oar  comprehension,  leaving  all  con- 
sideration of  the  greater  mysteries — asking  of  the  sum 
of  being  simply,  How  ?  and  not  Whence  ?  or  Why  ?  But 
that  system  is,  I  see,  rejected,  as  dealing  merely  with 
the  husk  and  not  the  kernel,  in  the  name  not  of  reli- 
gious faith  but  of  true  philosophy.  No  !  that  search 
into  the  height  and  depth  must  live,  as  it  always  has 
lived,  in  the  history  of  human  thought.  It  is  felt 
dimly  by  all  to  be  a  necessity  of  our  human  nature ; 
to  the  believer  that  necessity  depends  on  the  truth, 
which  St.  Augustine  has  so  nobly  expressed — in 
words  which  no  familiarity  can  make  hackneyed — that 
"  God  made  the  soul  for  Himself,  and  that  it  is  restless 
and  disquieted  till  it  find  Him." 

For  that  search  cannot  be  satisfied  by  the  veiled  or 
unveiled  Materialism,  which  finds  the  origin  of  being 
in  some  physical  Force — self -moving  and  the  source  of 
all  motion.  Against  such  theory  there  is  an  unanswer- 
able protest  in  the  consciousness  of  the  essential  supe- 
riority, even  in  finite  man,  over  all  that  is  material,  of 
the  power  to  think,  to  know,  to  feel,  to  love.  Nor  can 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  2>J 

we  rest  on  the  more  fascinating  Pantheistic  dream  of  a 
pervading  Soul  of  the  universe  "  becoming  in  humanity 
conscious  of  itself  "  ;  for,  if  there  be  any  human  con- 
viction absolutely  ineradicable  and  irreversible,  it  is 
that  of  a  real  personality  of  freedom  of  will  in  us, 
which  utterly  refuses  absorption.  And  if  we  are  bid- 
den to  rest  on  Law,  we  see  clearly  that  Law,  if  it  be 
anything  more  than  a  description  of  form  and  method, 
implies  some  energetic  Power  working  through  it. 

So,  I  repeat,  the  great  alternative  makes  itself  felt. 
On  the  one  hand,  to  give  up  the  search — either  abso- 
lutely, refusing  even  to  ask  whether  the  ultimate 
reality  is,  or  virtually,  by  holding  it  as  existent  indeed, 
but  "  unknown  and  unknowable," — and  to  endeavour, 
with  scant  success,  I  think,  to  fill  up  the  infinite  void 
so  created, — for  the  intellect  by  accumulation  of  lesser 
knowledge — for  the  soul  by  a  vague  worship  of  Nature 
or  Humanity. 

On  the  other,  to  find  everywhere,  or  rather  (as  St. 
Paul  teaches)  to  know  as  finding  us  everywhere,  a 
Supreme  "  Love  which  passeth  knowledge  " — the  Per- 
sonality (that  is)  of  a  living  God — in  His  own  Nature, 
as  the  great  mystery  of  Trinity  Sunday  teaches,  love 
from  all  eternity — in  His  Creation,  having  true  rela- 
tion to  all  His  creatures,  from  the  least  even  to  the 
greatest,  and,  in  the  old  simple  words,  not  only  making 
but  loving  all. 

Between  these  alternatives  I  find  it  hard  to  conceive 
of  hesitation ;  for  the  one  leaves  unsatisfied  the  ful- 
ness of  our  own  humanity  and  the  needs  and  aspira- 
tions of  its  daily  life ;  the  other  satisfies  all  these 


28  BACCALAUREATE    SERMON. 

by  what  the  text  so  nobly  calls  a  "  filling  up  to  the 
fulness  of  God," — calling  out,  as  in  the  first  great  com- 
mandment, an  answering  love,  as  from  all  the  heart  of 
emotion  and  soul  of  aspiration,  so  also  from  all  the 
mind  of  thought. 

There  is  to  me  a  deep  interest  in  remembering  that, 
as  the  motto  of  our  oldest  English  University  cuts  off 
all  such  hesitation,  when  it  acknowledges  the  Dominus 
illuminatio  mea — since  to  the  Christian  the  Supreme 
Light  is  life,  because  it  is  Love — so  you,  my  brethren, 
have  borne  the  same  witness  in  the  motto  of  your  own 
College,  In  lumine  tuo  videbimus  lumen.  And  unless 
your  assembling  here  to-day  is  a  mere  form,  you  must 
yourselves  personally  take  up,  as  your  own,  that  noble 
witness.  For  it  is  your  custom  that,  at  the  gatherings 
which  mark  the  eras  of  your  Academic  life,  some  word 
shall  be  spoken,  drawing  its  inspiration  not  from  the 
collective  wisdom  of  men,  but  from  a  revelation  of  God  ; 
therefore  not  content  to  find  the  Vox  Dei  merely  in  the 
Voxpopuli — the  voice  (be  it  observed)  not  of  the  multi- 
tude, but  of  humanity,  in  its  right  orders  and  degrees, — 
but  hearing  the  Vox  Christi,  as  rising  above  and  inter- 
preting this  lower  witness.  Nay  more  than  this,  that 
same  custom  marks  then,  not  merely  by  a  self-con- 
gratulating review  of  knowledge  and  of  influence  and 
power,  but  by  the  worship,  which  implies  the  rest  of  all 
energy  and  aspiration  upon  a  Wisdom  coming  from  on 
high. 

Again  I  venture  to  say,  God  grant  that  what  is 
here  implied  be  to  you  all  a  living  and  effective  reality, 
not  for  your  own  sake  only,  but  for  the  sake  of 


BACCALAUREATE    SERMON.  1§ 

the  true  progress  and  nobleness  of  the  University  itself 
—for  the  sake  of  that  higher  national  life,  which  it 
should  help  to  foster — for  the  sake  of  that  yet  higher 
service  of  God  and  man  in  the  Catholic  Church  of 
Christ,  to  which  the  leisure  and  wealth  of  thought 
given  to  you  here  should  supply  those  who  can  be  the 
best  and  truest  servants  !  God  grant,  I  say,  that  it  be  a 
reality  ;  and  a  reality  it  will  be,  just  in  proportion  as  you 
conceive  it,  not  in  some  vague  transcendental  vision  of 
the  Infinite,  beautiful  and  unsubstantial  as  a  dream,  but 
in  that  simple,  definite  living  knowledge,  alike  through 
light  and  through  grace,  of  God  in  Christ,  which  He 
Himself  declared  to  be  the  very  "  life  Eternal,"  and 
to  be  made  through  Him  the  treasure  of  even  the 
simplest  humanity. 


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